October 7, 2005	Friday	Ramazan 2, 1426

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PESHAWAR, Oct 6: The size of the third tranche of a World Bank loan is likely to be larger than the funds provided to the NWFP government in the first two tranches, according to official sources.

The province received $90 million each for Structural Adjustment Credit-I and SAC-II to implement its reform programme.

The size of the third tranche was likely to be larger as the World Bank appeared to be satisfied with the provincial government’s performance in terms of fulfilling its conditions and achieving majority of the benchmarks that had been set for it, the sources said.

Officials said the size of credit would grow as the bank had shown interest in extending greater financial assistance to the provincial health and education sectors.

However, the government’s efforts to get funds for poverty alleviation did not attract positive response from the bank, the sources said.

They said the size of the assistance was likely to grow in the light of the ongoing deliberations between the two sides for SAC-III.

“Though the figure of increased assistance has not yet been stipulated by the lending agency, there are clear indications that funding for the next structural adjustment programme would be well over $100 million,” said a provincial government official.

A finance manager said the tranche might be between $120 million and $140 million.

At the time of presentation of the budget, the provincial government had expressed the hope that the tranche of $90 million would be released in October or November.

However, the government’s hopes of getting the funds in the fourth or fifth month of the current fiscal year, according to sources, are not likely to materialize in view of the process adopted by the lending agency for disbursing the tranche.

Two WB missions are in the provincial capital to hold deliberations with government functionaries.

One of the missions is holding meetings in connection with the NWPF’s economic report, which is being prepared.

The other one is holding deliberations with representatives of the provincial government’s departments to ascertain information for determining requirements for different sectors.

“On the basis of information collected from the line departments and feedback from different stakeholders, the bank will design future lending programme for the province while determining triggers and benchmarks for future lending,” said an official.

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